In October 2005, F.E.A.R. (First Encounter Assault Recon), a spooky first person shooter from Monolith, was released for the PC. The game was very well received and in 2006 an Xbox 360 version was released to similar acclaim. Now here we are in 2007 and the game has hit the PlayStation 3. While it still has some great qualities (like amazing AI), the game is lacking in control, graphics and load times and really doesn’t feel like a “next-generation” experience. The PS3 version is clearly the weakest link.

The premise behind F.E.A.R. is that you’re part of a secret unit dedicated to combating paranormal threats to national security. That of course is technical jargon for “you’re a guy blowing things up that go bump in the night.”

The action is entertaining at times but the game controls are terribly frustrating. Shooting weapons in the PS3 version of the game delivers a soggy feeling – using the R2 trigger to shoot without any sort of recoil doesn’t give you a feeling of shooting a gun; in addition, there is a delay between pressing the button and actually shooting.

The game is still a challenge – the AI is impressive as the enemies work in teams to eliminate you and will not hesitate to sacrifice one of their own in order to have another enemy get a clear shot. You can use the game’s version of ‘bullet time,’ which slows the action down to a crawl in order to defeat or run away from multiple enemies at once. Activating this is very easy, but you only have a limited time to attack while in this mode.

If you can get over the controls, the next obstacle is the load times. While this is supposedly a next generation game, the load times are reminiscent of a tape loading from a Commodore 64. Okay, maybe they aren’t that bad but levels take about a minute to load which in video game time is excruciatingly long and does affect the enjoyment of the game. One would think that the load times are so long because of the lush graphical environments, right?

Uh, no.

The graphics are heavily pixilated and uninteresting. Using my HDMI connected PS3 and HDMI connected Xbox 360 Elite, the 360 delivers the better picture (for the record, the box says the game supports 720p on the PS3 while 1080i is supported on the 360). While this may be a matter of personal preference the 360 game is an all around better experience.